Why Write

I might have gotten off the wrong foot on why I should have a blog. This was something I had easily maintained back in high school and college life, but immediately stopped when I had began working. Mostly, I stopped blogging because I didn’t want people to easily read my thoughts, and maintain a professional relationship with them. On the other hand, I still wanted people to know what I thought.

In the end, I just had a quick attempt and a few (half-assed) blogs somewhere along my working years. Reading through them tends to leave me feeling hollow, though. As if I was not encountering myself, but a bot. Being someone who has a lot of opinions on various things– both the mundane and the abstract– writing about safe topics slowly killed my spirit.

This reminds me of a question I had asked a writer friend about being a writer. I told him that I wanted to be a writer, and that I know this deep down even if I still have a lot of work to do. It was because writing sets me free, helps me sort things out, and is the best way I can express myself; I am happiest when I am able to write well. The problem is that I already foresee how some of my thoughts might not resound with people. To that, he simply smiled and said, “such is the fate of a writer.”

That being said, perhaps part of being an authentic writer and a memorable one (at least in my opinion), is the capacity to take all the goodness and sh*tiness of humanity, be authentic about it, and turn it into something worthwhile. It’s not just about expression, but about creating something. Hopefully, something that can serve others in a way that helps them grow.

Talking to friends who manage blogs for a living has helped me appreciate their talent and time management. It has also helped me realize my limitations as a writer: brevity is the soul of wit. And in blogging, wit might be the only thing that keeps people coming back for more.

This is a step towards becoming the writer I want to be, and to reclaim my authentic voice as a writer. I need to stop filtering all the time (that comes later, with editing and much thought).

I begin with blogging again, a venue for expression in my younger years. Perhaps, later on, I can take on greater strides and actually put myself out there, regardless of what expectations others had of me as a person and as a writer.